


Harmonic Oscillation

by HomuraBakura



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Angst, Falling In Love, Fluff, Immortal!Reiji, Immortality, M/M, Minimal World Building, Time Travel, Time Traveler!Yuya
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 13:15:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9731951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HomuraBakura/pseuds/HomuraBakura
Summary: os·cil·la·tionˌäsəˈlāSH(ə)n/nounnoun: oscillation; plural noun: oscillations1. movement back and forth at a regular speed.2. regular variation in magnitude or position around a central point.We live our lives out of order with each other.  But that's all right.  I don't mind living out of order as long as I'm with you.





	

“You're late.”

Despite the quietness of the voice, it resonated through Yuya's head, making him hesitate for a moment.  He had to readjust to the sounds again.  Focus on breathing, he thought.  One breath at a time.

He stood very still for a moment, just breathing, shaking slightly, as he readjusted to his balance, to the air, to the smells.

The house had changed.  All of the appliances in the kitchen were new—something large, white, and sleek replaced the old wood burning oven, with no visible coils or even a place to pack wood.  He had gone a lot farther forward in time than he ever had before, he thought.  In fact, the whole kitchen looked a lot sleeker—the counters were now a smooth, mottled granite.

Finally, he let himself turn around towards the voice, heart in his throat as it always was every time he opened his eyes again after a jump.

There he was—sitting at the kitchen table, as though he hadn't moved from his spot since the last time Yuya had seen him.  The table was new, too, with a fresh stain and gloss.  Another thing that was different.

But as always, he was no different at all.

Reiji let his eyes flick up from his book, the same violet eyes glittering from behind the same old red glasses that still had a crack in one corner.  Same neatly trimmed gray bangs just over his eyes at a diamond angle, even the same old diamond studs in his ears.  He didn't even look like he had changed clothes; wearing the exact same dark gray shirt and big red scarf that he always wore.

Yuya swallowed through the dryness in his throat—he always had trouble getting back to himself after a jump.

“What year is it?” he asked hoarsely, quietly.

Reiji's eyes flickered over to the wall, where the calendar was hanging.

“It's 2017,” he said.  He closed his book and set it aside, rising up from the table and walking around it.  It was just in time, because Yuya finally remembered what legs were, and his decided to collapse right there.  Reiji caught him under the arms, holding him against him, and Yuya buried his face into Reiji's scarf, breathing in—the same scent.  It was always the same.

Everything changed, but Reiji always stayed the same.

“I'm sorry,” Yuya mumbled.  “I think I overshot then...”

Reiji responded by pulling him a little higher into his arms, his hand running briefly through his hair.  Yuya could taste the smile in his voice when he next spoke.

“I was only joking about you being late.”

He sighed, hugging Yuya up to him so that he could rest his face against Yuya's hair, breathing in his scent as well.

“Welcome home.”

~

Reiji found the boy holed up in the back of the library—in his spot.  The bay by the window was Reiji's favorite nook to hole up in with a novel and pretend that the world wasn't dragging on around him as slow as ever.  The boy was reading a newspaper with a desperate sort of fury, his brow furrowed and his teeth gnawing into his bottom lip.  There was something wrong about him.  It was the clothes, Reiji thought.  They were...wrong. 

When he looked up at Reiji staring at him, the boy's face went briefly white, and then, he smiled nervously.

“Just...catching up on the times,” he said quickly, folding the newspaper up and shooting to his feet.  “I was just—”

“Your goggles,” Reiji said.

“...huh?”

“They stopped making that type in the 1700s.  Those look new.  Where did you get them?”

The boy's eyes widened, and for a moment, his lips parted.  Reiji waited for the inevitable 'how would you know something like that' question, and he had already prepared the normal 'I read a lot' answer.  Except that's not what the boy said.

The boy's lip trembled briefly and then he bit down on it, stepping forward briefly, hands wringing, the newspaper tucked under his arm.

“Would you believe me if I told you I'm a time traveler?” he said.

~

“We're called Pendulum Jumpers.  At least, I think that's what we call ourselves.”

“You mean you don't know?”

The boy, whose name was Yuya Sakaki, tilted his head, red and green hair shifting around his face.

“Well, I don't get to meet a lot of other ones.  And it's genetic so...most of the time our parents jump before we really get to know them.  My dad disappeared when I was nine, so I guess I should count myself lucky I knew him for that long at all.”

Reiji's lips parted with shock, eyes narrowing at the thought.

“I've lived on this world for a very long time,” he said.  “But I've never heard of such a thing.”

Yuya smiled ruefully.

“Well, we don't get to stick around for very long, do we?  Not long enough to explain...”

Reiji leaned across the table.

“So...what is a Pendulum Jumper?” he said.  Time travel was something that never made sense to him.  He had read a lot about it, but it all seemed a fantasy, beyond human capabilities.

Yuya sat on the edge of the library table, his legs kicking back and forth.  A librarian would likely shout at them later, Reiji was sure.

“We...swing,” Yuya said, lifting his hands as though to try and sign it.  “Oh—like this!”

He grabbed the strange necklace around his neck, holding it up.  A pendulum, Reiji thought, and he watched it swing back and forth for a bit.

“I'm like this,” Yuya said.  “I'm here, first, see?”

He held the pendulum back with two fingers.

“And then, something happens, and I get jostled forward.”

He released the pendulum and it swung forward, and then back.

“And depending on how hard I get jostled forward, the further forward I go...or the further back I go.”

He pushed on the pendulum harder to make it swing wider.

“If I push myself hard enough on a jump, I stay longer, because it takes a little longer for the momentum to drag me back again,” Yuya said.  “Sometimes I can drag out a stay in one era to years...sometimes it's only a few days before I jump again.”

Reiji felt almost mesmerized by the swinging pendulum, swinging back and forth, and back and forth.  His eyes lifted to Yuya, lips parting—surely, he couldn't be expected to believe something like this though—

His words caught in his throat when he met Yuya's eyes.

They looked...

Old.

Reiji had only ever seen eyes like that in the mirror before.

He felt himself softening, in a way that he couldn't remember ever doing before.  He reached out; put his hand gently on Yuya's knee.

“It must be hard,” he said.  “Can you not control it?”

Yuya shook his head.

“When I feel the tug coming, I can throw myself into it as hard as I can to try and maximize how long I can stay but...that's about it.  I can control my speed but not the jump itself...it always comes back for me eventually...”

He smiled down at the floor, eyes looking...so tired.  He let the necklace fall back against his chest.

“You don't really get to make a lot of friends like this, you know?” he said, and his throat felt choked.  “Never know when you're going to disappear again...I met people, you know, people I cared about...by the time I came back forward again, they were...all grown up...”

He laughed, and it sounded so hollow, so desperate to be cheery.

“Everything changes,” he said.  “I can't keep up.”

Reiji's hand tightened on Yuya's knee.

He knew that feeling.

He thought he had been the only one in the world to know that feeling.

“Yuya,” he said.  “...where are you staying right now?”

~

The young man called Reiji gave Yuya a little card with his address on it.  Yuya supposed he should be grateful that the man seemed to believe him at all—that is, if this wasn't some elaborate prank or trick to get to Yuya.

Yuya pushed out through the doors of the library, out into the cold, gloomy, misty evening.  He kept rechecking the address, making sure he had it right, or memorized, in case he dropped or lost the card.

“I never move house,” Reiji had said.  “So should you end up jumping before we meet for dinner, you'll still find me there.”

Yuya had to chuckle a bit at that.  It wouldn't matter if Reiji never moved house...if Yuya ended up jumping a significant time then Reiji would be old...just like all of the other friends he had made...

Oh god—the tug.  He could feel the tug.

Yuya planted his feet just outside the door of the library, blocking an old man from getting out.  The man swore at him, shoving past and knocking Yuya against the shoulder, but Yuya's head was spinning.  Already??  But he—he hadn't been here for even a few days yet!  No, no, no, he was just on his way to Reiji's, can't he just last a few more hours—

It was no good.  He could dig in his heels all he liked but the tug was pulling him forward—he didn't know how far it was, he hadn't pushed himself too hard this time which meant he wouldn't be in his next time for very long either—

He gasped, rocking back to alertness.

The weather and the time of day had changed.  It was a bright, sunny day, warm rather than cool and misty.  He almost choked on the air for a minute; it was so much different from what he had just been breathing.

“Hey, watch it,” a woman snapped, careening around him on the sidewalk.

Yuya blinked a few more times, careening back against the wall so that he was out of the way, pressing his hands to the brick.  He chanced a look behind him.

It wasn't a library anymore, it was a supermarket, it seemed.  There were people going in and out of automatic sliding doors.  Had he been in a time like this before?  He couldn't remember.  The newspaper from before was still under his arm.  He glanced at it again, at the date—January 20, 1815.  There was a newspaper rack outside the supermarket doors, and, heart in his throat, he edged across the way to peek at the date.

His heart sank.

June 3, 1971.  Well over a hundred years.

For a moment, Yuya just sat there against the wall, pressed into it.  His knees gave out then, and he slid slowly to the ground.

He wanted to cry.  He wanted to start sobbing.  Every time.  Every time he met someone, thought he was going to actually be able to enjoy himself...it was all ripped away from him again.  Why couldn't he...why couldn't he be like everyone else...why couldn't he just live in one time...

It was only the fear of someone calling the police on him that kept his tears swallowed and silent.

He still had the card with Reiji's address crumpled in his hand.

It was the only thing that was still the same.

~

There was really absolutely no point to going to Reiji's address.  Yuya thought he must be some kind of sadist to himself for even trying.  He knew better by now.

But then...

What else was there for him to do?

It was a big house, he thought, rather impressed, probably three stories.  Old-style, too, not really Victorian, but maybe something even older than that?  There were parts of the house that were clearly newer than other ones, swatches of paint that weren't quite finished.  Didn't seem to quite match the straight-laced image of Reiji that Yuya had in his head, but, well, it had been over a hundred years.  Someone else would have taken control of the place by now.

This was a bad idea, he thought.  Why was he punishing himself like this?  Why was he on the porch, his hand hovering over the door to knock?  Was he maybe hoping to find a descendant?  Someone who had a story from their grandpa about the strange boy who said he could time travel who showed up one day and never again?

Just some proof that he had existed in someone's mind?

He took his hand away from the door.  No...he wouldn't bother whoever lived here.  Best to just...

He didn't get to finish his thought, because the door swung open.

“Are you ever going to knock?  You're quite late as it is already, you know.”

Yuya's entire body froze up, his eyes widened, his mouth opened.

“H-how...?”

Reiji Akaba was standing in the doorway, looking down at him with his head slightly tilted.  He looked as though not a moment had passed since the few seconds—the few hundred years—since Yuya had seen him last.

Reiji considered Yuya for a brief moment.

And then he smiled.

“So you were telling the truth,” he said.  “If you believe in time travel, then, why not immortals?”

~

Reiji had been alive for somewhere close to a thousand years.

“I lost count, after a while,” he said while pulling stew off the stove.  “What was the point—time is an illusion anyway.”

Yuya had to laugh at that, and Reiji cracked his own smile.

“How did it happen?” Yuya had to ask, as Reiji put a bowl in front of him.  “Like...vampires or something?”

Reiji chuckled.

“Don't be silly, Yuya.  Vampires don't exist.”

“But time travelers and immortals do,” Yuya pointed out.

Reiji took a seat across from Yuya, stirring his stew to cool it down.  He stared at it for a while, as though trying to formulate his thoughts.

“It was so long ago, I hardly remember,” he said.  “I had turned eighteen recently.  It was...somewhere in the 1020s, it must have been.  I believe I must have been…somewhere in my late teens, early twenties—I don’t remember anymore.”

He shrugged, eyes going out of focus.

“I was on...a pilgrimage of some kind, I think.  I met a woman on my way...if I am...not misremembering...she said her name was Ray.”

Reiji's eyes looked so far away, Yuya almost thought he was a Pendulum Jumper himself, about to hop to the next time.

“She was injured, and had been alone for a long time, afraid bandits would set upon her.  I shared my rations with her and helped her with her wounds, before accompanying her to the next town.”

He shook his head.

“I don't remember what happened after that.  She blessed me, as people often do when someone gives help.  She said that I would know of her blessing later.  It was...some time before I realized that I had ceased to age.”

“Did you make a deal with a demon?” Yuya joked.

Reiji chuckled.

“Would that it had been so simple,” he said.  “I believe...I'm quite certain she thought what she was giving me was a gift.”

Yuya hesitated with the spoon halfway to his mouth, eyes raising up to Reiji.

“...is it not?” he asked.

Reiji's eyes met Yuya's, and Yuya saw something there—something...sad.  Something like Yuya felt in his own bones, his own unaging body flung back and forth in time ever since he turned sixteen and his genetic heritage had flung him decades into the future.

“Sometimes I wonder,” was all Reiji said.  And Yuya understood.

~

Reiji started keeping journals to try to make sense of their strange relationship.

Somehow, their first meeting was the first one for both of them.  They stopped living on the same time line after that.

Yuya appeared on his doorstep a few weeks after their first meeting, looking harried and desperate—and immediately threw himself forward to hug Reiji.

“You’re still here,” he had gasped.  “I thought—maybe I had thrown myself back too far ths time.”

Reiji took that to mean that for Yuya, their second meeting had already happened.  And, as Yuya already knew Reiji’s story about his immortality, he had no question that the events he spoke of had, indeed happened.  So he wrote it down—Yuya’s account of their second meeting, and his own account.  He copied them out twice, and put them each into two files.  One in the chronological order of Reiji’s life, and one in the chronological order of Yuya’s.  It was something to do, he supposed.

And perhaps it would be interesting to see the way that their lives intertwined.

On their second meeting, Yuya stayed for two years.  And then he was gone again, and the next time Reiji saw him, it was four years later, and he had stories of having met the future Reiji twice over this time.

Reiji wrote them down, and filed them.

The second time Yuya jumped, it was only four months before he popped into existence in his kitchen, and he did not remember the last time they had met.  He hadn’t been there yet.

Reiji wrote them down again, and tried to put them in order.

“Do you ever get…annoyed?”

Yuya was curled up on the couch, marveling at the springy texture.  It was 1953, and the couch was new; he hadn’t seen it yet.

Reiji looked up from his notes; he was researching a particular pottery style because it reminded him of what the woman who had given him immortality had been carrying.  He wasn’t sure why he continued to search for her.  It had been thousands of years.  Either she wasn’t immortal and she was dead, or she was lost among the billions of other people in the world.  If she didn’t want to be found, he had no doubt she would not be.

Still.  It was something to do.

“Annoyed?  With what?”

“With me.”

Reiji tilted his head.

“I fail to see your logical leap, here.”

Yuya flushed, and poked briefly at the couch, as though to look at something other than Reiji.

“I pop back and forth all the time, and I don’t always remember everything we did because I show up out of order,” he said.  “Doesn’t that ever get tiring?”

There was something tight in Yuya’s voice, something that almost cracked.

Sometimes, Reiji forgot that Yuya was still young.  Sometimes, Reiji forgot that he wasn’t.

He rose from the table, and Yuya’s eyes flickered upward, looking surprised as Reiji walked from the kitchen and into the living room to sit down right next to Yuya.

“Yuya,” he said.  “I have been alive for longer than I can remember.  Everything always changes, over and over again.  I stopped trying to keep track of it at some point.  I was too tired.  I became bored…disillusioned.”

He looked towards the bay window, at the sunlight dripping through.  A woman with a stroller pushed past on the road towards the park, and he thought about how it kept changing outside.  The houses, the clothing, even the air.

The only thing that stayed the same, no matter how out of order he was, was Yuya.

He looked at Yuya again, and found that Yuya was staring at him, his crimson eyes filled with nerves.  Reiji had the sudden, overwhelming urge to cup Yuya’s face.  But he didn’t.  He just put his arm around Yuya’s shoulders, and sighed deeply.

“But you have made my life more interesting than I ever thought possible,” he said.  “I find meeting you out of order to be part of your charm, Yuya…and I wouldn’t trade this time I’ve found with you for anything in the world.”

He smiled at the awkward look on Yuya’s face, the blush that spread over his cheeks.

“Thank you,” he said.  “For making my life worth looking forward to again.”

Yuya looked like he wanted to say something, looked as though something were stuck on the tip of his tongue.  But he didn’t say anything, in the end.

Instead, he just melted back against Reiji’s arm, his head slipping onto Reiji’s shoulder, and sighed deeply.

He was warm.

~

Reiji was always quiet, no matter what time Yuya knew him in.  He moved slowly, as though he were trying to emphasize just how slow time went for him.  And he smiled rarely.

But when he did, it was like the entire room came alight with sunshine.

Yuya wondered if he only thought that because Reiji was, really, the only person in his life.

There had been others.  His mother and father, of course, although it was hard to remember either of them well.  He still felt…horrible for leaving her behind like his father did.  He knew, logically, that he couldn’t have helped it, but he thought about her a lot, about how lonely she must have been after they vanished, after Yuya forgot even what time he had first come from or the street he had lived on.

There had been a girl named Yuzu, whose last name he had never learned, who had laughed like daffodils and loved fierce like roses.  He had known her for four weeks on a traveling wagon train, and they had parted ways with a laugh and a promise drawn out of him to visit her on her homestead when he came back that way.

There had been Gongenzaka, the blacksmith’s heir, who Yuya knew for three months while he tried to make a living doing magic shows while he was in that time.  Gongenzaka had always laughed at all of Yuya’s jokes and dragged him home for suppers, claiming that he was far too skinny for his age.  Yuya had found his gravestone the next time he appeared in that time and place.  He never went back to that town again.

And others, names that tumbled through his head of people who had left their impressions like streaking comets, there and gone again.  Dennis, the masked performer who had pulled him out of the crowd as his volunteer during the circus, and then kissed him on the cheek and the end of it and told him to come again.  Grace, the barmaid, and her sister Gloria, who had let him sleep in their loft in exchange for playing his recorder at the bar at night to entertain their drunken guests.  Shingo, the bored politician’s son who had demanded Yuya sneak him out of the dull political party he had been dragged to and take him on an adventure through the hedge maze.

There were a million more, and Yuya had never gotten to know any of them as long as he wanted.  He had never gotten to share their stories with anyone, or even his own.

Reiji listened, though.  He listened to every single one, wrote down names, smiled at the funny parts, asked all the right questions.

And he told stories of his own, too.  He, too, had known many and kept touch with few.

There was the story about the ninja twins that Reiji had earned a favor from, that he never went back to cash in.  The snappish Selena, a reluctant bar dancer who had bigger dreams, whom Reiji had first mistaken for the woman who had given him immortality.  There was Shun, the wounded soldier who had staggered to Reiji’s door and told him stories about the sister he had left at home while he recovered.

“You’re a kind person,” Yuya said once, in the middle of a story.

Reiji hesitated, his words dying briefly.

“What makes you say that?” he said.

“All of your stories end with you helping someone,” Yuya said.  “You nursed people back to health without asking for payment, gave people money to get out of their situations…”

Reiji shrugged, as though he didn’t understand what was ground-breaking about that.

Yuya smiled as he rested his head on his folded arms, liking the way that the light from the setting sun outside the kitchen window outlined his face like the dark, richly colored Renaissance paintings that he had hanging in his bedroom.

“And you helped me, too,” Yuya said. “You let me stick around, even though I’m confusing, and I can’t give you anything back.”

Reiji just smiled at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Like I know I’ve said to you before, you make life worth looking forward to,” he said.  “There is always something interesting when you’re around—I’d say that’s more than enough repayment for simply giving you the use of an otherwise empty guest room.”

Yuya smiled; he really was good at rationalizing away his own good points.  Yuya liked that he was able to be around Reiji enough to know that about him.  He actually had the time to learn new things about Reiji Akaba, and not just snippets of a time before he disappeared again.

“I think I know why that woman gave you immortality,” he said quietly.  “It’s cause you do things like this.  Maybe she was hoping you’d keep helping people.”

Reiji’s lips twitched a bit—Yuya couldn’t be sure if it was a smile or a frown—but he didn’t respond.

 _He’s kind,_ Yuya thought silently this time.  _I’m…I’m glad I met him._

~

Yuya was a light that he never expected to have.

He hadn’t been lying when he said this life was boring.  He submitted research papers to journals every now and then to supplement his inheritance where necessary, but he never left the house of his own accord.  Home or the library, those were the only walls he saw.  He stopped talking to people—there was no point, they wouldn’t stay.  Nothing ever did.

Not until Yuya.

Yuya’s smile was like a brilliant open sky.  His eyes would sparkle at each new thing, and he laughed so easily.  Reiji loved the way that his entire face would light up at something new.  Nothing was too simple for him; he marveled over every new thing.  It made Reiji get excited in spite of himself, about things that weren’t even interesting.  Running water, or electric stoves; soft new fabrics or new musical trends.  Yuya loved them all, loved them fiercely, as though they would disappear in seconds—Reiji supposed, for him, it was always a possibility.  And yet, he never seemed to grow tired.

“It’s because I have you,” Yuya said a lot.  “I have someone to share things with now.”

Reiji was flattered at the thought, but he was willing to bet it was because Yuya was just like that: overflowing with love and excitement for the world around him.

Yuya loved television when he first learned about it, and Reiji bought a set just for him.  He marveled over actors, and would jump up off the couch and copy them, doing impressions that would get Reiji laughing so hard that his sides hurt—he wasn’t sure that had ever happened before.

“If you had the chance to live normally,” he whispered once during the static of a commercial break, “what would you want to be?”

“An actor,” Yuya said, without hesitation.  “I would want to be an actor.”

He twisted his head up against the crook of Reiji’s arm, eyes glimmering in the dark.  “What about you?”

Reiji had never known.  He supposed he would have to come up with an answer, though.  What would he do if he had a limited time to do it?

The reflection of the television in Yuya’s eyes was like mini rubies, and the answer tumbled out of his lips before he even thought about it.

“I would want to be with you.”

~

The first time they kissed, Yuya was sure he had overstepped something.

Reiji was telling another story, and Yuya realized that he had stopped listening long ago, just memorizing the shape of Reiji’s face, the cadence of his voice.  His voice bounced around the old kitchen, the words not making any sense to Yuya because he was so intent upon the sound itself.

He was used to trying to memorize people, so that he could remember them when they were gone.  It was a strange and exhilarating feeling to be able to memorize Reiji’s face and know that no matter what, it would be the same.  It would always be the same, and he and his smile and his calm voice would always be there waiting for him.

He didn’t know what he was doing until he did it.  He had been staring at Reiji’s lips to memorize the voice, and almost of his own accord, he found himself sliding forward across the table, until he was on his knees on his seat so that he could lean all the way across and touch his lips to Reiji’s.

He only realized what he was doing when the voice stopped echoing around him, and his eyes flew open to find Reiji looking at him with surprise, his violet eyes wide.

Yuya flinched back, mortified with himself—what had he been thinking??

His chair wobbled under his sudden movement, and he squeaked with fear—the world spun as he tumbled towards the tile and then—

He caught against Reiji’s arms, and felt his scarf mush against his face as he was drawn against Reiji’s chest.  His fingers instinctively curled into the fabric—he could feel Reiji’s heart racing against his ear, and a heat rose to his cheeks as he realized how badly he must have startled him.

“Are you all right?” Reiji asked after a few moments for them to catch their breath.

“Yes,” Yuya whispered. “I’m—I’m sorry.  That was stupid of me.”

Reiji’s arms tightened around Yuya just as he was about to slip away.  Yuya hesitated—did…did Reiji not want him to go after all…?

After another beat, Reiji’s hand slipped gently under Yuya’s chin, tilting it up towards him.  His eyes were so, so richly colored, his lips parted as his gaze searched Yuya’s.  It was a moment that lasted longer than both of them, Yuya thought.

Slowly, Reiji leaned down towards Yuya, and Yuya felt his eyes fluttering shut of their own accord, waiting, breathless.  Reiji hesitated inches from Yuya’s lips, his breath tickling Yuya’s skin.

“Is this okay?” he whispered, his voice actually…nervous.  Uncertain.

“Yes,” Yuya said, without hesitation.

And then Reiji’s lips finally met his, and they leaned into each other, arms wrapping around each other’s waists.

And Yuya thought this must be what eternity felt like.

~

“Have you ever jumped to a time that you’ve already been?” Reiji asked, quietly, into the dark.

“Like, have I ever run into myself?” Yuya said.

Reiji nodded, but Yuya only knew because his head was right next to Reiji’s, and he felt the movement against the pillow.  It was warm and cozy here, cuddled up against him beneath the thick blanket.  Yuya’s hand rested against Reiji’s bare chest, and he absently traced designs against his skin.  Reiji’s arm held Yuya against him, his other one inches from Yuya’s fingers, as though he were thinking of entwining their hands again.

“I don’t think it’s possible,” Yuya said.  “I always seem to miss my exits by a few weeks.  I think that’s the way it works, for us.  Even Pendulum Jumpers can’t be in two places at once.”

He grinned into the dark, nestling his head against Reiji’s neck, and Reiji finally moved his hand to where Yuya was tracing against his skin to twine their fingers together.

“Why?  Are you thinking naughty thoughts about having two Yuyas?”

Reiji actually chortled—it was a free, lovely sound, deep and rich as his eyes.

“I was only curious,” he said. “You were the one that made it dirty.”

Yuya laughed, and Reiji’s head twisted towards him and their lips met again, and Yuya thought that he would like this to last forever.

~

It was two days after Yuya had jumped again, (quite unfortunately, right after their dinner date), and Reiji was spitting his cereal all over the newspaper.

His heart thumped in his chest as he quickly tilted the paper to get as much of the milk off of it—luckily, the article in question hadn’t been ruined, so he was able to remove it from the liquid and read it again.

Massive car accident on the intersection of Maple and Cherry, at least one confirmed dead.

There was no photo of the dead person.  But the newspaper reported he was unable to be identified; his finger prints and blood sample were in no databases, he carried no ID, and no one had claimed him.

 _Maple and Cherry is where we go out to the library,_ Reiji thought.  _What if he had been forced to jump from there, and…disoriented, had…_

Reiji dropped the newspaper into the puddle of milk and ran for the door.

~

Yuya popped back into the room, blinking with a bit of disorientation.

He heard a soft swear, a crinkle of paper, and when his vision came back, it disappeared just as quickly as Reiji enveloped him in a huge, pressing his face against his chest.

“Whoa,” he mumbled, still dizzy.  “You’re really affectionate right off the bat…”

He stopped talking, because he could feel tears in his hair, and Reiji’s shoulders shaking against him.  He hesitated, and then, slowly, lifted his arms up under Reiji’s arms, hugging him tightly.

“What’s…wrong?”

Reiji just swallowed thickly, and hugged him even tighter.

“Please don’t disappear,” he whispered.  “Please.”

~

_Is it possible to change the past?_

Reiji kept thinking that, over and over again, as he sat on the couch and watched Yuya laugh at the crude jokes on the variety show.

_I have a time traveler right here.  Isn’t it possible to change things, somehow?  Warn him?  But what kind of paradox would that cause?  Is it…is it possible to change the past?_

Yuya’s laugh echoed around the room again, and he fell backwards against Reiji’s knees, sitting in front of him on the floor.  Still giggling, his head dropped back onto Reiji’s lap.  The smile faded after a few minutes when he caught Reiji’s somber expression.

“What’s wrong?”

Reiji remembered throwing the hospital doors open after determining where the car accident victims had been taken.  Hearing a sobbing driver talk to the police in the waiting room with a splinted arm, about how he just appeared out of thin air, she didn’t have time to stop, she didn’t know where he had come from—

Running down hallways looking in every room while nurses shouted at him and someone called security and then—

The last door, swinging open, and the body lying on the bed, the heart rate monitor already flat and the doctor shaking his head, looking up in surprise at the door flinging open, at the man sagging to his knees in the doorway, hands sliding down the doorframe, tears rolling out of his eyes and mumbling “YuyaYuyaYuyaYuya” over and over again.

“Reiji, what’s wrong??” Yuya said, sounding frightened.

Reiji realized, only then, that he was crying again.

He slid down off the couch so that Yuya was in his arms again, holding him, keeping him tight against his chest.  He was alive, and warm, and in his arms, and real.

He was also buried in the garden out back, under a newly planted rose bush.

_When does it happen?_

_Which one of our visits is his last?_

_When will he stop appearing in my kitchen with a dizzy smile, apologizing for the wait?_

He had never hated living their lives out of order.

Not until now.

~

Yuya hadn’t shown up again for almost three weeks.  Reiji read and re-read his notes and journals.  His timeline, and Yuya’s.  Where would Yuya have ended up on the road that day?  Have they had that meeting yet?  Has Yuya’s timeline ended already?

Five weeks.  No sign of Yuya.  Reiji started sitting outside in an old wicker chair in front of the rose bush.  It wasn’t blooming yet.  Maybe it never will.  He kept it pruned and watered anyway.  He didn’t want to be in the house, in the kitchen, while the sun sets and he decides Yuya won’t be appearing today either.

_When does it happen?_

_When does Yuya’s timeline intersect with his again, and end with him dead on a hospital bed?_

There was no one to claim him.  The police had, after a while, simply decided that where he belonged was a dead case.  Reiji didn’t have any rights to the body, but his tears must have moved someone to allow him to take it home and bury it, since no one else would claim him.

He hoped that’s what Yuya would have wanted.  Maybe he should have asked.

Maybe he should have told him what was coming, paradoxes be damned.

If only he hadn’t choked on his tongue every time he tried to say it.

Four months.  The bed felt cold and empty without Yuya there.  The garden flourished now that Reiji spent all his time out there; he finally cut away the overgrowth and started planting some vegetables, because he doesn’t feel like writing articles to make grocery money.  The rose bush still didn’t bloom.

Seven months.  _Yuya has never been away this long._

Maybe his time with Yuya was nothing more than a happy dream, after all.

A year passed in gray silence, the kitchen cold, empty, and more often than not without food.  He only ate when he remembered to, and that wasn’t often.  Part of him still refused to believe it was over.  Yuya would show up in the kitchen again, smiling and sheepish, and then be mortified at how long it took for him to show up again.

“Were you lonely?” he would ask.

“Very,” Reiji would say back.

But those words never graced the kitchen, and eventually, he stopped going in the house at all.  The garden with Yuya was the only place for him.  He wondered if he was able to die at all.  Of starvation, or depression.  He had never tried before.  He had a feeling it wouldn’t work.  He hadn’t eaten anything for weeks and he didn’t feel even the least bit weakened.

_“I think there’s a reason she gave you the gift of immortality.”_

If the reason was so that he could continue to suffer after losing the one good thing he had left, then this was no gift at all.

Reiji talked to the rose bush a lot.  It was the only thing that had Yuya in it anymore, even though it never bloomed.

“It looks like it might rain today, Yuya.”

“Did I tell you the story about the time I accidentally got dragged into a circus for a few weeks, yet?”

“I heard someone talking on the phone over the fence yesterday, Yuya.  Did I ever show you what phones look like now?  You can watch all of your favorite shows from the 70s on them now.” 

“There’s a new cartoon I think you would have liked.  I can’t remember what it’s called.”

The rain dripped down into the garden, soaking him to the bone, but he still did not go inside.

He wouldn’t leave Yuya alone ever again.

~

He startled awake at the sound of rustling—not the kind of rustling that the wind makes through the leaves in his garden, but the kind of rustling of a person moving branches.  For a moment, his vision blurred, and he forgot where he was—then the wicker chair reminded him that it was digging into his back and he groaned, sitting up and squinting.

His first thought was—Yuya. 

His second was—not Yuya, but a stranger in my yard, picking at Yuya’s rose bush.

And the final thought, when the shape finally came into focus and the woman looked up from where she had been spreading out rose branches was—it’s her.

The girl called Ray had not changed.  She was the same tall, slender girl with the fair skin, and the dark hair twisted into the same pigtails they had been in the first time he had met her.  It had been almost a thousand years, but he recognized her immediately.

He couldn’t speak.  The words wouldn’t come out of his throat.

So she spoke first, with a sad smile on her lips.

“You fell in love with one too, didn’t you,” she whispered.

She didn’t have to say it out loud for Reiji to know what she meant.  Pendulum Jumper.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, looking down.  “He’s gone now.”

Ray stood up, brushing the dirt from her knees.

“You’re not happy, are you?” she said.  “I hoped you would be.”

“Why did you do this to me?”

Ray smiled, but her eyes were sad, and her gaze downcast.

“You reminded me of me,” she said.  “And I saw your heart.  It was kind.  We need more kind hearts like yours in this world.  That’s why I chose you.”

“You never explained it,” Reiji said, feeling his voice crack.  “I had to—find out.  When my family started outliving me, and dying.  I had to find out by accident.”

“And I’m…more than sorry,” she said, her voice a whisper.  “It wasn’t supposed to be that way.  I was supposed to find you again, and initiate you, teach you about who you were now, and what you could do.”

Reiji felt actual tears in his eyes, but he couldn’t get himself to stand.

“What happened, then, that was so important?” he snapped.  “To leave me alone here, trying to figure out what the goddamn hell happened to me, and if life was even worth it.  To have everything taken from me.”

A tear escaped down Ray’s cheek, too.

“I’m sorry,” she said.  “There were a lot of us, once.  A lot of immortals.  And we had a duty, to protect this world.  We were…we called ourselves miracle-givers.”

She approached Reiji then, and fell to her knees before him, laying her arms gently on top of his.  Her eyes found his, and he found himself then unable to look away.

“Some of them grew hateful,” she said.  “They wanted to rule this world.  And a fight broke out.  Only we know how to kill each other.  I’m the only one left.  You and I are the only ones left.”

Reiji couldn’t see for the tears in his eyes.  He didn’t care about this.  About any other group of immortals, about protecting the world, about Ray, about anything.

He just wanted…

Ray reached up, wiping a tear from Reiji’s cheek.

“I’m sorry it took me so long to find you,” she whispered.  “And I’m sorry for what happened.”

“Sorry won’t bring him back.  The past can’t be changed.”

When he looked up from his lap again, he saw that Ray was smiling.

And he saw the cracks, then, forming in her skin—hairline thin, with light starting to grow from inside.

“I’m dying,” she said, before he could speak.  “But I have a little bit of power left.  Enough to give to you.”

She cupped his face, and smiled.  For a moment, Reiji felt like he was in the presence of…of a sister.  Someone older, someone here to take the burdens off of his shoulders.

“What for?” was all he could whisper, as the cracks grew larger, and the light started to eat away at his sight of Ray.  He grabbed her hand against his cheek, willing her to stay a little longer.

Her smile was made of light as she faded away from him, her voice echoing.

“One last wish.”

And then, she was nothing but light, and the light was growing in his chest, and he felt it.  Like sunlight, pulsing through him, it was the center of the universe.  It was the center of everything.  He had all of them, he realized with a shock.  Not just Ray—the other immortals.  She had taken their power from them.  He knew he could look into those memories, learn exactly who she was and who the others had been, others like him, the fate that he could have had.

But he didn’t care.

Only one thing was important.

He looked down at the rose bush with the sun pulsing in his chest.

There was one, single rose, bright red and mottled with faint green patches, growing down at the bottom, where Ray had been touching it.

 _One last wish…_ he thought, with the power to rip the universe apart in his chest.  _One last wish._

~

“Yuya, you’re going to be late!  You’ll have to take your breakfast with you!”

“God, okay, I’m coming!”

Yuya hurtled down the stairs, tripping over the last one and skidding across the hall and into the wall.  He groaned as his face smarted from the impact, rubbing his nose.

His mother held out an extra-large pancake in one hand through the door of the kitchen, and a wrapped lunch in the other.

“Yuzu’s probably still waiting for you; don’t make her miss the train again!”

“I won’t!” Yuya moaned.  He snatched both pancake and lunch, and shoved the pancake in his mouth.  He vaulted over the corgi asleep in the hallway and into his shoes, not bothering to pull the heels up.

“Have a good day!  Your dad is swinging by the school to pick you up for that audition you wanted to go to after school!”

“Awshome,” Yuya shouted back through a mouthful of pancakes, hurtling out the door.

The sky was a brilliant blue—it was going to be a great day!  Yuya swallowed down the last of his pancake and ran with shoes flopping against his heels to the street and—

BAM!

Yuya squeaked, arms wheeling as he hurtled towards the sidewalk.  He closed his eyes and—

He didn’t hit.  Someone was holding his arm, keeping him inches away from certain impact.

After a slow moment of getting his breath back, his rescuer carefully pulled him back up to a standing position.

“Are you all right?”

That voice…sounded…familiar…but Yuya couldn’t put his finger on it…

He looked up slowly, cautiously.  The hand was still around his wrist, but…

His breath caught.  He…he knew this face.  But he…how?

Reiji Akaba smiled at him. Yuya shouldn’t know what his name was.

“For once, it’s me surprising you with my appearance,” he said with a soft, beautiful laugh.  “Do you remember?  I still have all the notes I made in the last universe if you need any help remembering.”

Yuya already remembered.  He remembered that smile.  He remembered—the jumping, and meeting him, and living with him, and kissing him and the blare of a horn as he staggered forward after a jump, blinking the dizziness out of his eyes too late—

He leaped into Reiji’s arms and then their lips were crashing together, and once again, Yuya remembered what eternity really felt like.

They both ended up on the ground with Yuya on top of him, both of them laughing so hard that they couldn’t breathe—it was a joy they couldn’t put words to.

“You—you rewrote the entire goddamn universe—you’re crazy.”

“I’m in love,” Reiji said.  “Don’t worry, I made sure not to alter too much of history.  The friends in this era you know are actually reincarnations from the ones you originally met in the old universe—”

“Oh shut it, you nerd,” Yuya said, crying, his tears falling on Reiji’s face. “Are you still—”

“No,” he said.  “I’m sixteen.  And aging normally.”

“And Pendulum Jumpers?”

“As far as I know, all of them get to live regular, normal, forward living lives in this universe.”

Yuya kissed him again, and their happy tears mixed up together until they couldn’t remember where one began and the other ended.

“I love you,” Yuya said.

“I love you,” Reiji whispered back.

They kissed one more time, and Yuya once again remembered what eternity felt like.

~

_As long as I’m with you, no life is boring, or too short._

_Let’s live forwards this time, and in order, together._

_I’m looking forward to every moment with our hands together._


End file.
